1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for processing pixel rasterization in 3-Dimensional graphic engine and method for processing the same, and more specifically to a device and method for processing pixel rasterization in 3-Dimensional graphic engine capable of performing 3-Dimensional graphic processing efficiently using multiple pipelines with a single cache.
2. Description of the Background Art
3-Dimensional (3-D, hereinafter) graphic technology can display an image of an object in 3-D space using 3 axes of height, width, and depth, which can realistically display the image in a 2-Dimensional monitor.
The 3-D graphic engine inputs a geometrical image described by an image modeler, and uses parameters such as camera viewing or illumination to generate an image.
The 3-D graphic engine performs a series of processing steps called a “graphic pipeline”. Any delay in processing in the graphic pipeline will affect pipeline processing speed.
Processing in the graphic pipeline is divided into geometry processing and rendering processing. The quantity of calculation in geometry processing is proportional to the number of a definite point of polygon, and the quantity of calculation in rendering processing is proportional to the number of pixel of image.
When the graphic processing is performed in a high resolution monitor, the processing speed of the rendering engine, which performs rendering processing, needs to be increased as the number of picture element increases. To solve the above described speed problem, the inner structure could be reorganized, or the parallel method of increasing the number of rendering engine could be considered.
To increase the processing speed of a rendering engine, access to memory is most important. In other words, increasing the bandwidth of memory promotes access to memory. Texture data and pixel data processing should be performed to display an image in 2D screen, and such data are stored in memory. Equipping cache memory in graphic engine is essential to decrease access time to memory.
Conventional processing method of pixel rasterization has a drawback in that an additional device is needed to maintain consistency between cache memories by using one pipeline per one cache memory and that processing speed of pixel raterization is delayed.